10 stories you may have missed this weekend

1. One key to security at the DuPage County courthouse may just be a tennis ball. The ball helps police canine Jewel motivated as she and Deputy Ken Diebert patrol the courthouse looking for explosives and other threats.

2. Alternately angry and determined, members of Trinity African Methodist Episcopal Church and other churches in Waukegan raised their voices Sunday in what they said was a call for justice. They were reacting to the recent deaths of unarmed black men - like Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y. - at the hands of police officers.

3. Two weeks after an Iraq War veteran went missing from his home in Libertyville, family and friends aren't giving up hope, or their search.

4. It was recognition long overdue last week when Libertyville resident Jill Paulson, a Presbyterian minister in Grayslake, received a replica of the Congressional Gold Medal earned by her grandfather in World War II.

5. Warren Township High School is preparing to handle what's expected to be a large turnout for a school board meeting Tuesday night in the wake of an elected official's comment about not wanting a gay superintendent.

6. Jacobs High School senior Lauren Van Vlierbergen was named the national female winner of the Wendy's High School Heisman Award Friday night at Best Buy Theatre in New York.

7. After challenging times in hospitals and at doctors' offices, children with life-threatening diseases and their families escaped to the North Pole Saturday on a not-to-be-forgotten train ride followed by a special visit with Santa.

8. A strip of storefronts in downtown Naperville that's awaiting new retail tenants is being brightened this holiday season by a vintage pop-up shop selling dresses, shoes and purses.

9. One year after an Arlington Heights police officer was shot while responding to a domestic dispute, the police officer still is recovering and the state police investigation still isn't complete.

10. They were born four years apart, but Antioch sisters 11 and 15 on Saturday celebrated a shared birthday with a numerical twist: 11-12-13-14-15.

BONUS: Bears QB Jay Cutler says the alleged fractured relationship between him and injured wide receiver Brandon Marshall is a matter of perception, sports writer Bob LeGere writes. "Brandon's Brandon. We wish he was here," Cutler says. "We wish he was getting ready with us for this Monday night game, but he's not."